Dark Rivers of the Heart

have hesitated to rid himself of this world in hope of waking in another.
        All he could do, however, was quietly honor the dead by never forgetting the details of their final passage through this place. His duty was to be witness. By shunning memory, he would dishonor those who had died here in his place. The price of forgetfulness would be his soul.
        Describing those catacombs as they had been in that long-ago time, coming at last to the woman's cry that had roused him from his paralytic terror, he was suddenly unable to go on. He continued to speak, or thought he did, but then he realized that no more words would come. His mouth worked, but his voice was only a silence that he cast into the silence of the room.
        Finally a thin, high, brief, childlike cry of anguish came from him. It was not unlike the one cry that had jolted him from his bed on that July night or the one that, later, had broken his paralysis. He buried his face in his hands and stood, shaking with grief too intense for tears or sobbing, waiting for the seizure to pass.
        Ellie was aware that no word or touch could console him.
        In glorious canine innocence, Rocky believed any sadness could be relieved by a wagging tail, a cuddle, an affectionate warm lick. He rubbed his flank against his master's legs and swished his tail-and padded away in confusion when none of his tricks worked.
        Spencer found himself speaking again almost as unexpectedly as he had found himself unable to speak a minute or two ago. "I heard the woman's cry again. From down there at the end of the catacombs.
        Hardly loud enough to be a scream. More a wail to God."
        He started toward the last door, at the end of the catacombs.
        Ellie and Rocky stayed with him.
        "Even as I moved past the dead women in these walls, I was remembering something from six years before, when I'd been eight years old-another cry. My mother's. That spring night, I woke hungry, got out of bed for a snack. There were fresh chocolate-chip cookies in the kitchen jar.
        I'd been dreaming about them. Went downstairs. The lights were on in some rooms. I thought I'd find my mom or dad along the way. But I didn't see them."
        Spencer stopped at the painted black door at the end of the catacombs.
        Catacombs they were and always would be to him, even with the bodies all disinterred and taken away.
        Ellie and Rocky stopped at his side.
        "The kitchen was dark. I was going to take as many cookies as I could carry, more than I would ever be allowed to have at one time. I was opening the jar when I heard a scream. Outside. Behind the house.
        Went to the window by the table. Parted the curtain. My mom was on the lawn.
        Running back to the house from the barn. He… he was behind her. He caught her on the patio. Beside the pool. Swung her around.
        Hit her. In the face. She screamed again. He hit her. Hit and hit.
        And again. So fast.
        My mom. Hitting her with his fist. She fell. He kicked her in the head.
        He kicked my mom in the head. She was quiet. So fast. All over so fast.
        He looked toward the house. He couldn't see me in the dark kitchen, at the narrow gap in the curtains. He picked her up. Carried her to the barn.
        I stood at the window awhile. Then I put the cookies back in the jar.
        Put the lid on. Went back upstairs. Got into bed. Pulled up the covers."
        "And didn't remember any of it for six years?" Ellie asked.
        Spencer shook his head. "Buried it. That's why I couldn't sleep with the air conditioner running. Deep down where I didn't realize it, I was afraid he would come for me in the night, and I wouldn't hear him because of the air conditioner."
        "And then that night, all those years later, your window open, another cry. It reached me deeper than I could understand, drew me out of bed, out to the barn, down here. And when I was walking toward this black lacquored door, toward the scream…
        Ellie reached to the lever-action knob on the door, to open it, but he stayed her hand.
        "Not yet," he said. "I'm not ready to go in there again yet." barefoot on icy stone, I approach the black door filled with the fear of what I have seen tonight but also with the fear of what I saw on that spring night when I was eight, which has been repressed since then but all at once comes bursting UP from